I haven't shoplifted anything since I was little and I stole a pack of gum. My dad drove me back to the store and made me apologize to the store manager.
I was officially declared a juvenile delinquent by the judge who oversaw the Janklow trial. My shoplifting days are long gone, but I was quite the artful dodger once upon a time.
Aside from copious amounts of digital media and a coaster from a bar (once), I've never shoplifted/stolen anything. Am I missing out? I can start now if necessary.
Wait! I thought of something. I once snuck my own 6-pack of beer into a super-crowded shi-shi SoHo lounge with a friend. What we paid for the whole 6-pack would have barely covered one beer, with tip. No one even noticed.
That's not really shoplifting, though. Probably just against the house rules.
A further, humiliating expansion on 22: I thought that having the capabilities that such a technological setup would provide would win me cool points in the Theatre Tech crowd.
I have some library books I acquired as a child that never made it back to the library. I don't know if this is actually stealing, because I wasn't intending to keep them when I took them out, but I'm certainly liable for conversion.
(A couple of years ago I had occasion to be back in my high school library, and picked up a book I'd taken out more than fifteen years ago. No one had taken it out since. So I console myself that probably no one would have read the ones I never returned.)
Shoplifted some food a couple of times, long ago, because I had the wacky impulse to have some that week. Never shoplifted a book; instead, had problems with vast numbers of free ones always being available while working in NYC publishing.
Who's Afraud if Philosophy by Derrida, several years ago. I rationalized it because it was the campus bookstore, and so I was really just extending my scholarship a bit. Derrida's not half as nerdy as Frege, though. In fact, it's difficult to think of what is more nerdy than Frege.
unintentional; i plainly mixed my "i" and "o" buttons, which are right next to each other. See, it's not just that I'm a bad speller; I'm a bad typist.
I now completely disregard the signs at movie theatres telling me that outside food is not allowed. There are a couple of local places that get movies just before the DVD where I'll still buy concessions.
Davis Square comes to mind. The tickets are cheap. There's real butter on the popcorn, and the prices aren't absolutely outrageous.
But that's just because Derrida is much more recent than Frege. How long has it been since Derrida's best-known works were published, after all? Not that long. I bet that if you asked a bunch of people in the 1920s, you'd find many more knew who Frege was than Derrida.
My dad drove me back to the store and made me apologize to the store manager.
I had this same experience at about age 5 with a roll of LifeSavers. Cured me of stealing until the summer after the fifth grade when I stole a cassette from KMart. '77 by the Talking Heads. I had never heard of them at the time but the band name was so strange to me that I felt I had to have it. At that young age, the music was even stranger, though I fell in love with Psycho Killer. It was pretty much my first foray outside of KISS-Aerosmith territory.
Didn't return to my thieving ways until the interwebs came along.
Really? What I was thinking is that not many people would be interested in Frege unless they're specifically studying the philosophy of math or logic. Even other philosophers I imagined, such as bioethicists, likely wouldn't have read him. Derrida, as was pointed out, has a much wider audience. Of course, you may say that there is something flawed with my reasoning that less popular = more nerdy.
Derrida is some funny guy they think about over in the English department.
This is, amusingly, one of the pet peeves of the professor I studied Derrida with. I say amusingly because of how he expressed it. He was complaining about some paper a professor in comp lit gave on Derrida, and said something like, "I don't try to teach chemsitry. Why? Because I don't know anything about it. Why are they trying to teach Derrida? They don't know anything about that."
To that one could probably mount some Protagoras-like reply, but the paper in question was bad enough to let it pass.
Um, is the non-italicized portion of 39 supposed to provide evidence against (what is claimed in) the italicized portion? Because it sure as heck does not.
That's not bad, dsquared, but some people do this thing called "shorter such-and-such," where they summarize a piece in a way that's pithy, humorous, and ever so slightly uncharitable. It's very funny.
Is it time to conclude that ogged, when confonted with his own inadequacies, will attempt to claim that he was merely engaging in humor, not unlike a lad woefully out of his league attempting to hit on the woman who thinks of him as just a friend?
You're alright.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 5:07 AM
If you are fond of a book, say, "I'll just slip this into my bag when no one is looking."
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:05 AM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:08 AM
Epictetus or Augustine?
Posted by Zadfrack | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:11 AM
Information wants to be free.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:17 AM
If you are fond of a book, steal it! For then when you spill coffee on it at two AM, you will not be upset.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:17 AM
re. 4: Or Erasmus?
Posted by JWP | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:19 AM
Loeb classics were always getting stolen-- they had a high resale/return value
And they're small, practically begging to be stolen.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:31 AM
epictetus. and I have to cop to having stolen a few loebs from the columbia classics library, but that was just to read, not to sell...
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:34 AM
I have only ever shoplifted two books (in a single incident): Hegemony or Survival by Chomsky and The Foundations of Arithmetic by Frege.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:37 AM
Given the subject matter, the appropriate question is were you in control of your kleptomaniacal desires?
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:40 AM
I haven't shoplifted anything since I was little and I stole a pack of gum. My dad drove me back to the store and made me apologize to the store manager.
I think it was Tidal Wave.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:41 AM
Ogged, it sounds like you might have something you'd like to apologize for.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:52 AM
I was officially declared a juvenile delinquent by the judge who oversaw the Janklow trial. My shoplifting days are long gone, but I was quite the artful dodger once upon a time.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:57 AM
Ogged, it sounds like you might have something you'd like to apologize for.
No, sorry, just using my imagination.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:01 AM
god, adam; I though I had stolen something nerdy, but you just pwned me with the Frege thing.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:07 AM
I stole condoms - only because I was too embarrassed to buy them outright.
Later I found out our frat had a "Morality Chairman" who would happily sell me such items. Much better.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:26 AM
I though I had stolen something nerdy
I stole the box set to the Gamma World RPG. (And umpty-ump other RPG-related items.)
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:31 AM
Aside from copious amounts of digital media and a coaster from a bar (once), I've never shoplifted/stolen anything. Am I missing out? I can start now if necessary.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:34 AM
No, Chopper, stealing the Gamma World RPG is geeky, not nerdy.
Posted by Zadfrack | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:43 AM
Wait! I thought of something. I once snuck my own 6-pack of beer into a super-crowded shi-shi SoHo lounge with a friend. What we paid for the whole 6-pack would have barely covered one beer, with tip. No one even noticed.
That's not really shoplifting, though. Probably just against the house rules.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:44 AM
Two cassette-sized speakers and a splicing dongle so I could play music from my Walkman in stereo?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:45 AM
Are you still a thief, Chopper?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:46 AM
A further, humiliating expansion on 22: I thought that having the capabilities that such a technological setup would provide would win me cool points in the Theatre Tech crowd.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:47 AM
23: No. Being declared a JD and having my father lose all trust in me for a few years kinda knocked it out of me. Then I grew some pride.
(mp3s don't count, right?)
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:49 AM
Rehabilitation!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:57 AM
I thought that having the capabilities that such a technological setup would provide would win me cool points in the Theatre Tech crowd.
We're a hard bunch to win over.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:58 AM
I have some library books I acquired as a child that never made it back to the library. I don't know if this is actually stealing, because I wasn't intending to keep them when I took them out, but I'm certainly liable for conversion.
(A couple of years ago I had occasion to be back in my high school library, and picked up a book I'd taken out more than fifteen years ago. No one had taken it out since. So I console myself that probably no one would have read the ones I never returned.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:59 AM
I'm in the same library book boat as LB, regarding a german, complete edition of Lichtenberg's Waste Books. I can't even read them very well.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 9:41 AM
Shoplifted some food a couple of times, long ago, because I had the wacky impulse to have some that week. Never shoplifted a book; instead, had problems with vast numbers of free ones always being available while working in NYC publishing.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 11:58 AM
"Things in our control are... desire...."
Didn't this come up before?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 12:04 PM
Who's Afraud if Philosophy by Derrida, several years ago. I rationalized it because it was the campus bookstore, and so I was really just extending my scholarship a bit. Derrida's not half as nerdy as Frege, though. In fact, it's difficult to think of what is more nerdy than Frege.
(mp3s don't count, right?)
mp3s don't count.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 12:52 PM
Who's Afraud if Philosophy
I really hope that was unintentional, but that would be too good to be true.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 1:09 PM
unintentional; i plainly mixed my "i" and "o" buttons, which are right next to each other. See, it's not just that I'm a bad speller; I'm a bad typist.
It is funny, though.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 1:42 PM
Joe D.,
I now completely disregard the signs at movie theatres telling me that outside food is not allowed. There are a couple of local places that get movies just before the DVD where I'll still buy concessions.
Davis Square comes to mind. The tickets are cheap. There's real butter on the popcorn, and the prices aren't absolutely outrageous.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 1:50 PM
o, u, and i are part uf an eqiovalence class fir Mochael.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 2:08 PM
bin wulfsin.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 2:40 PM
Ah bin wulfsin oll ovur toun. Ah thunk ot wis sumthan ah et.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 2:52 PM
Derrida's not half as nerdy as Frege, though.
Get out. Where I'm from, Frege is a must-read, perfectly respectable, and Derrida is some funny guy they think about over in the English department.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:34 PM
Naw, it's likely that a reasonably well-educated person on the train will have heard of Derrida, much less likely they've heard of Frege.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:38 PM
So much the worse for trainriders! (I'm at least half-kidding.)
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:45 PM
But that's just because Derrida is much more recent than Frege. How long has it been since Derrida's best-known works were published, after all? Not that long. I bet that if you asked a bunch of people in the 1920s, you'd find many more knew who Frege was than Derrida.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:48 PM
Aye. Derrida is for comp lit dilettantes. Frege is for serious thinkers.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:48 PM
I suspect, also, that Derrida's being born in the 1930s might have something to do with that, b-wo.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:49 PM
Oh, surely not.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:52 PM
My dad drove me back to the store and made me apologize to the store manager.
I had this same experience at about age 5 with a roll of LifeSavers. Cured me of stealing until the summer after the fifth grade when I stole a cassette from KMart. '77 by the Talking Heads. I had never heard of them at the time but the band name was so strange to me that I felt I had to have it. At that young age, the music was even stranger, though I fell in love with Psycho Killer. It was pretty much my first foray outside of KISS-Aerosmith territory.
Didn't return to my thieving ways until the interwebs came along.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 3:57 PM
Frege is a must-read
Really? What I was thinking is that not many people would be interested in Frege unless they're specifically studying the philosophy of math or logic. Even other philosophers I imagined, such as bioethicists, likely wouldn't have read him. Derrida, as was pointed out, has a much wider audience. Of course, you may say that there is something flawed with my reasoning that less popular = more nerdy.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 4:17 PM
Derrida is some funny guy they think about over in the English department.
This is, amusingly, one of the pet peeves of the professor I studied Derrida with. I say amusingly because of how he expressed it. He was complaining about some paper a professor in comp lit gave on Derrida, and said something like, "I don't try to teach chemsitry. Why? Because I don't know anything about it. Why are they trying to teach Derrida? They don't know anything about that."
To that one could probably mount some Protagoras-like reply, but the paper in question was bad enough to let it pass.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 4:24 PM
Um, is the non-italicized portion of 39 supposed to provide evidence against (what is claimed in) the italicized portion? Because it sure as heck does not.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 4:51 PM
frege is totally a must read. I love frege.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 7:44 PM
I really appreciated being forced to read Husserl before Frege. The contrast only makes you appreciate Frege more.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 8:25 PM
Sinn und Bedeutung 4EVA
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 9:03 PM
I had a job whose duties included swiping the mailing label pouches from the Fed Ex box near the building entrance.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 9:37 PM
You were paid for this in dollars, or pickled puppy snouts?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 9:54 PM
It was at a litigation support company, actually.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 10:20 PM
Re: "Davis Square comes to mind. The tickets are cheap. There's real butter on the popcorn, and the prices aren't absolutely outrageous."
A million dollars for the canyon-o-corn seems to me to be outrageous. So does one cent for the thimble-o-corn...
Posted by Brad DeLong | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 11:13 PM
It was at a litigation support company, actually.
Is this code for "snouts"?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09- 7-05 11:23 PM
According to the terms of the confidentiality agreement required of all employees of that company, I am not at liberty to divulge such information.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 12:38 AM
my capsule review of Frege's Begriffsschriff: gosh this could use a few more jokes.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 1:33 AM
That's not bad, dsquared, but some people do this thing called "shorter such-and-such," where they summarize a piece in a way that's pithy, humorous, and ever so slightly uncharitable. It's very funny.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 8:52 AM
Shorter ogged: I'm a nitpicking neovirgin.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 10:17 AM
pithy, humor, and ever slightly uncharitable. 4 stars Chopper!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 12:09 PM
Can I get a pwn?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 2:40 PM
even shorter ogged: I might be gay.
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:44 PM
Is it time to conclude that no one got the joke in 60?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:46 PM
um, yeah, i think we did. nice day today, wasn't it?
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:47 PM
I'm not convinced.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:49 PM
seriously, there was no end of laughter. and by the way, that granny at the pool, she totally dug you.
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:55 PM
I assumed it was a Frege-joke, but I truly don't get it.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:56 PM
Is it time to conclude that ogged, when confonted with his own inadequacies, will attempt to claim that he was merely engaging in humor, not unlike a lad woefully out of his league attempting to hit on the woman who thinks of him as just a friend?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:56 PM
The joke, my frenemies, is that dsquared is the originator of the "shorter such-and-such" method.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 3:59 PM
Oh man, you got us.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:01 PM
god, that's hysterical. it's, like, metablogian humor. somebody get the comedy channel on the blower NOW!
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:01 PM
Nah, I don't think it's quite comedy channel material, but I knew you'd like, pete.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:03 PM
to quote a great line from the simpsons, i kid because i love -- at the mineshaft
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:05 PM
I don't see how 71 affects 61 and 70.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:08 PM
or 64, for that matter. what about 64? hey, gil wants to know about 64!
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:10 PM
sorry, but i bet apo got that, which would make one more than those who got ogged's foray into "humor"
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 09- 8-05 4:11 PM